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While I am relatively new to the Real Estate industry, I find it
unbelievable that anyone would think it is non-competitive. Anyone who says
otherwise has obviously not worked in the industry. There is no other
industry out there that is as competitive as Real Estate. Each agent is an
independent contractor that has to fend for themselves. We pay most, if not
all, of our own costs related to marketing and obtaining customers. We also
have to pay large sums of money to belong to organizations such as the
National Association of Realtors. In addition to that, we are responsible
for 100% of our social security/Medicare taxes and our health insurance.
Most of the Real Estate companies (including large firms) do not provide a
retirement plan or any sort of 401K; therefore, we have to be responsible
for taking care of that ourselves.

Taking a look at my local market, there are just over 700 listings in the
MLS. The last count I heard for the number of Realtors here was over 900.
That creates enormous competition. The agents with those listings worked
incredibly hard to get them and pay a lot of money to market them - through
the MLS and otherwise. There's a reason that Realtors rank just above
lawyers and used-car salesmen in people's minds. mainly because of the
cut-throat competition. It's very simple to become a Realtor. The
difficulty lies in becoming and remaining a successful Realtor.

The MLS system is a cooperative between brokers. It is not, and has never
intended to be, a free public utility. It is not, and has never intended to
be, a referral service. We, as agents, pay to belong to the MLS. We are
also required to follow very specific rules to continue to use the service.
The beauty of the MLS is that it allows real estate brokerages of every size
to compete on a level playing field. It gives all of us access to an
inventory of property listings that we are able to show and sell to our
clients.

I've never seen Pepsi trying to sell Coca Cola to its customers to boost the
sale of Pepsi; or Budweiser selling it's customers Sam Adams to boost the
sale of Budweiser. They don't do that because it is their right not to
promote their competition's products. Why should brokers be required to
give away their "product" (listings) to help boost another broker's sales?
Brokers need to remain in control of who can see their listings. No one
should be allowed to promote someone else's products without their
permission - whether it is beer, soft drinks, or Real Estate.

Because of the internet, consumers and businesses are very lucky to even be
able to see data from the MLS at all. It certainly wasn't required for
anyone to put that information out there freely in the first place.